On Media

New York Times, Wall Street Journal editors take on Trump and the media

By HADAS GOLD

01/01/2017 09:00 AM EST

The top editors for The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal expressed wariness over the incoming president-elect’s respect for the First Amendment.

In a special NBC “Meet the Press” episode devoted to the media and President-elect Donald Trump, New York Times editor Dean Baquet said he’s troubled by Trump’s remarks about the press and the First Amendment.

"First off, the things he has said about the press in general are troublesome,” Baquet said. "He has said things that should make all journalists nervous about his view of the First Amendment, about his view of a press that's supposed to ask him tough questions. So that makes me nervous.”

Wall Street Journal editor Gerard Baker said that despite the fact Trump often makes “questionable” and “challengeable” statements, he’s instructed his staff to keep their social media postings straight laced in order to maintain the trust of the readers.

Asked by host Chuck Todd whether he’d be willing to call out a falsehood as a “lie” like some other news outlets have done, Baker demurred, saying it was up to the newspaper to just present the set of facts and let the reader determine how to classify a statement.

"I'd be careful about using the word, ‘lie.’ ‘Lie' implies much more than just saying something that's false. It implies a deliberate intent to mislead,” Baker said, noting that when Trump claimed “thousands” of Muslims were celebrating on rooftops in New Jersey on 9/11, the Journal investigated and reported that they found no evidence of a claim.

"I think it's then up to the reader to make up their own mind to say, 'This is what Donald Trump says. This is what a reliable, trustworthy news organization reports. And you know what? I don't think that's true.’ I think if you start ascribing a moral intent, as it were, to someone by saying that they've lied, I think you run the risk that you look like you are, like you’re not being objective,” he said.

Baker also said he wishes the American media was less “deferential” to politicians and to the president.

The comment stood out, as one of the Journal’s top writers, Monica Langley, has been criticized for her soft puff profiles and being friendly with her sources, and internally, Journal staffers complained before the election about publishing “too many flattering access stories,” according to one source.

"I think there needs to be a little less deference, a little less insider behavior,” Baker told Todd on “Meet the Press”. "A little less coziness that there's been sometimes between the media and the major political institutions.”

Baquet said that while he was proud of the work the paper did on Trump, where the paper missed in their coverage was “understanding the anger in the country.”

"I think if news organizations made a mistake, and I can only speak for my own, I think that we wrote stories about anger in the country,” Baquet said. "We even did a series called Anxiety in America. But, of course, we should've done more. And I think people would've been less surprised, had we done more. That's what I would've done differently.”

Baquet noted that while Trump has been well-investigated by the press there are still some “huge, unanswered questions,” including how wealthy he is, what he owns, and how much debt he has.